In heightened emotional states, chakra could be forced out of the body entirely, bypassing technique and control. For most shinobi, this resulted in sloppy output, wasted energy, or momentary instability. For someone like Naruto, with reserves as deep as his, it was far more dangerous.
The wooden floor creaked beneath his feet.
Fine cracks spread along the boards as pressure settled into the room, the air growing thick and oppressive.
And in that sudden surge, Hiruzen felt it.
For the briefest instant, it was as if screaming faces rose up around him. Distorted, hollow visages twisted in agony, mouths open in silent cries. They vanished just as quickly,but the sensation did not.
Hiruzen's breath caught in his throat.
"…Killer intent?"
In the shinobi world, killer intent was often spoken of as a badge of honor. Proof that one had crossed the line between innocence, bloodshed, and survival. To many, it was a symbol of a truly dangerous shinobi.
That belief had always troubled him.
In truth, killer intent was yin chakra shaped by memory, emotion, and death.
No one fully understood why, but killing sometimes left residue behind.
Some deaths passed without a trace, carried out in cold necessity or detached duty. Others left behind faint imprints in the chakra network, like scars too fine to notice until pressure was applied. Yin chakra, bound as it was to the psyche and the soul, seemed especially vulnerable to holding onto these marks.
When a shinobi bearing such residue stirred their chakra with the desire to kill, even unconsciously, those imprints responded.
Killer intent manifested.
For the average shinobi, killer intent was something they knew of, not something they truly possessed. A concept taught in classrooms and whispered about on battlefields, but rarely felt firsthand. Even veterans of the great wars carried it like buried shrapnel, lodged deep within their chakra and psyche, detectable only by sensitives or by those standing uncomfortably close. Simply killing a few times was not enough. It took years of repetition, a gradual erosion of the boundary between killing as a necessary act and killing as an instinctive response, before that weight could begin to seep outward.
Those capable of projecting it were rarer than any kekkei genkai, and almost without exception, they were monsters wearing human skin.
Zabuza Momochi was a famous example. A prodigy who slaughtered his entire graduating class without hesitation. His chakra had been permanently warped by the act, saturated with death so thoroughly that his killer intent felt like standing in front of a blood demon.
But Naruto Uzumaki had only killed Mizuki.
A single kill was never meant to give rise to killer intent, least of all one powerful enough to cause even minor illusory effects.
So how, in the Sage's great beard, was this possible?
Is this because of the Nine-Tails?
The simplest answer was often the most likely.
Minato's seal had been constructed to let the Kyūbi's chakra flow slowly into Naruto's own and the Kyūbi's chakra was infamous for its hatred. If that malice had bled through along with the power, then it stood to reason that traces of killing intent had taken root in Naruto as well.
For now, it was the only explanation Hiruzen could accept; one that kept him from spiraling into darker speculations about how a child could possess such killing intent at all.
One of the ANBU was already behind Naruto before most eyes could have tracked her movement.
Purple hair slipped from beneath a porcelain cat mask as she appeared in his blind spot. A tantō slid free without a whisper, the blade angling toward Naruto's throat. Not to kill but to restrain. With the killing intent pouring from him, he had become a potential threat.
Naruto moved first.
A kunai left his hand in a sharp snap, slicing through the air toward the space behind him as if he already knew she was there.
The ANBU twisted, knocking it aside, but her eyes narrowed behind the mask.
That reaction alone was troubling.
Even seasoned chūnin struggled to track ANBU-level body flicker techniques. For Naruto to counter from a blind angle meant one of two things: he had been hiding a far greater skill level than anyone suspected… or he possessed a sensory ability no one had documented.
Another crack in the version of Naruto he thought he understood.
Seeing Naruto and ANBU Cat poised to clash, Hiruzen released his chakra.
"Stop."
The word with it chakra that cracked the walls and splintering the floor as pressure slammed down on everyone present. ANBU froze mid-motion. Naruto stiffened, unable to move.
The room remembered who ruled it.
"This is the Hokage's office," Hiruzen said calmly. "Stand down."
The cat-masked ANBU immediately disengaged, stepping back into the shadows.
An uneasy silence settled over the office. Naruto stood rigid, impatience radiating off him in sharp, restless waves. Whatever was keeping him here, it clearly wasn't where his mind wanted to be.
"Where's the guy who ruined my life?"
Danzō.
Even in exile, the man's influence lingered like a stain that refused to wash out.
"I've handled it," Hiruzen replied evenly. "You will not have to concern yourself with him."
The answer hadn't satisfied him, and it showed. Without waiting for dismissal, he turned toward the door, already moving, as if whatever lay beyond these walls mattered more than anything Hiruzen could say.
"Naruto."
The name stopped him, but only for a second.
Hiruzen rose slowly from behind his desk as an old man watching a boy walk away. "There are things I cannot undo," he said quietly. "Mistakes I've made. Choices I stand by, even if they cost me your trust."
Naruto's hand tightened on the doorknob.
"But whatever you are facing, you do not have to face it alone." Hiruzen stepped forward, the weight of decades in his voice. "If there are answers you seek, come to me. If there are burdens you carry, let me share them. I may not have told you everything when you were younger… but I have never stopped watching over you."
For a moment, Hiruzen allowed himself hope.
Hope that the boy would turn back. That he could still bridge the distance between them, understand what was happening to him, learn where these new abilities had come from… and maybe, just maybe, preserve what remained of their bond.
"Save it."
The words were flat.
"I'm done listening."
The handle turned.
"And if you really cared," Naruto added, voice colder now, stripped of its usual heat, "you would've told me the truth from the start."
The door opened.
Hiruzen's last thread of hope frayed, but he still tried. "Naruto..."
"Fuck off."
The door slammed shut, the echo rolling through the office like a verdict. Hiruzen stood there long after the sound faded, staring at the empty space where the boy had been, wondering when exactly the distance between them had grown so wide.
Dinner was quiet, just the way Inoichi Yamanaka liked it. His daughter, Ino Yamanaka, sat across from him, a fair skinned teen with average height, her long platinum blonde hair framing the right side of her face. Her green eyes were glued to one of those cheesy romance novels she was always reading, and he tried to ignore the irritation building up as she skimmed through the pages rather than her food.
Today, Inoichi had made sure to include a few high calorie dishes. Things she wouldn't notice were meant to keep her from getting too skinny with that damn diet of hers. He knew she wouldn't appreciate the extra calories, but as her father, he had to make sure she stayed healthy enough to be a proper shinobi in the field.
"Ino chan, let's try something different today. Imagine you're walking through a dense forest. As you walk deeper, you come across a house. It looks familiar, but you've never seen it before. You step inside. What do you see?"
Ino's mind snapped to attention as she considered the question. Her father always made sure to ask her one psychological question every night before bed to keep her mind sharp.
A ninja's greatest weapon was their mind, after all.
Ino chewed thoughtfully on her food. "The house is cozy, old but well kept. There's a warm fireplace and the walls are lined with books." She paused, a slow smile spreading across her face. "And obviously my dream guy would be waiting for me there, tall and handsome."
"This is about Sasuke again, huh?"
"Of course! He'd be there, probably with a cup of tea already made for me. It's romantic."
Inoichi couldn't fault her for this, not yet anyway.
She was a young girl at the start of puberty.
Let her have her fantasies.
The crush was innocent enough, but Ino was now a genin. Life as a shinobi was anything but a romantic novel. Maybe that's why Inoichi let her indulge in these little daydreams. For now, her innocence was fleeting, and he knew it would be stripped away in time.
But even as he told himself that, his gaze drifted toward the picture of her mother, his late wife, who had died during the Kyuubi attack.
Don't worry, my love, he thought. As long as I'm breathing, nothing will harm our daughter. I just have to make sure that she is ready for the real world.
"Interesting answer. You know, how you interpret that house reveals a lot about how you see your inner self."
"My inner self?"
"The house represents your subconscious mind. What you see inside is a reflection of how you view yourself, your strengths, comfort zones, and even your desires."
"So, you're saying my mind is a cozy cabin?"
Inoichi smiled. "More or less. It suggests you value comfort, warmth, and intellect. But the fact that you brought your dream guy into the picture indicates something else."
Ino blushed slightly. "What does it mean?"
"It means that, subconsciously, you believe someone like Sasuke is important to completing your vision of happiness," Inoichi explained. "It's natural to want connection, Ino, but you should also be mindful that relying too much on others to create your inner peace can lead to disappointment."
She sat quietly for a moment, processing the information. Then, with a sly smile, she said, "Well, Sasuke can be part of my cozy cabin if he wants. I'm not kicking him out."
"Just don't let your cabin rely on someone else's presence. Make sure it stands on its own, with or without him."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
Suddenly, Inoichi was on guard as an ANBU agent appeared before them. "The Hokage has requested a meeting, Inoichi sama."
Inoichi nodded, his mask already switching from father to shinobi.
"Dad, can you maybe bribe the Hokage to make sure I end up on Sasuke's team?!"
"I'll try, my lemon," Inoichi said, using the nickname she pretended to hate. She stuck her tongue out at him, a playful glint in her eyes.
"Remember the routine: all leftovers go in the fridge, and make sure Choji gets them tomorrow."
"Especially the seaweed chips!"
"Those are for you."
"Fine… whatever."
Inoichi smiled softly at the exchange, savoring the moment. "Goodbye."
"Just go already!" Ino said, waving him off like he was an embarrassment.
Inoichi glanced at the ANBU agent, and with a final nod to his daughter, the two of them vanished with a body flicker.
The moment Inoichi stepped into the Hokage's office, he knew something was wrong. Hiruzen looked more stressed than Inoichi had ever seen him. It was as if the announcement of the Fourth Shinobi World War had dropped on his desk.
A knot formed in Inoichi's stomach.
Please, anything but that.
The thought of war sent a chill down his spine. Not only did he fear war himself, but he could not bear the thought of his daughter experiencing the horrors that came with it.
"Hokage-sama," Inoichi greeted, his voice steady, yet his mind was racing through worst case scenarios.
Hiruzen seemed to sense his growing unease and offered Inoichi his smoking pipe.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama, but I'd like to live long enough to see my daughter marry a bastard that doesn't deserve her," Inoichi said with a small smile, though the humor did little to settle the tension gnawing at him.
"Don't worry, Inoichi. I need your mind."
My mind?
Inoichi narrowed his focus on those words. If Hiruzen needed strategic advice, he would have called Shikaku. The Nara clan head was a genius when it came to battle plans and strategy.
But this was not about strategy. Hiruzen needed him for psychological insight.
"What can I do for you?"
"It's Naruto."
Inoichi's mind slammed to a halt.
Naruto?
Uzumaki Naruto? The prankster of Konoha? The orphaned son of the Fourth Hokage? The current container for the Kyuubi no Yoko, the very being that had ravaged their village twelve years ago and killed his wife?
Inoichi had never blamed the boy for what happened. He knew the difference between Naruto and the Kyuubi. But the very idea of the Kyuubi was enough to make him take this seriously.
His mind raced through everything he knew about Naruto.
From the rumors around the village to the comments Ino had made about him.
"Is this about his failed graduation?"
Perhaps Naruto was angry about failing, or maybe he had a violent outburst. It was not impossible that the Kyuubi's chakra had been released in a moment of anger. The boy dreamed of becoming Hokage, and Inoichi could imagine the frustration building inside him after failing to become a genin.
"If only it were that simple," Hiruzen said, rubbing his head before revealing everything that had happened with Naruto.
Inoichi listened quietly as he tried very hard to ignore the seemingly impossible things Naruto could suddenly do. Any shinobi worth their salt would analyze these abilities. But Inoichi's mind went to the boy.
"What do you know about Uzumaki Naruto?"
Hiruzen found the question odd at first. Then he remembered who was asking it, and it became another issue entirely.
He answered carefully.
"What do you know about Uzumaki Naruto personally?"
The guilt arrived quietly, the way it always did when it was deserved. Hiruzen answered what he could. The boy had a fondness for ramen. A penchant for pranks. He was loud, boisterous, and wanted nothing more than to become Hokage.
"What else?"
What else?
Well...
That is...
The Third Hokage of Konoha felt his lips press into a thin, sad line.
That was, as a matter of fact, all he knew.
Had this been anyone other than Yamanaka Inoichi, Hiruzen might have dismissed the line of questioning as paranoia, or worse, some hidden bias against the boy. But Inoichi had known, worked, and fought beside Minato.
Beyond that, Inoichi had known Kushina. Had known her well enough that certain things didn't need to be said out loud. Whatever complicated feelings a younger Inoichi had quietly carried for Kushina Uzumaki, they had never translated into anything, and time had a way of filing those edges down. But they had left the particular tenderness a person holds for someone they once wanted to protect and never got the chance to.
He would not hold the sins of this village against her son.
"I do not see how this relates to our current problem, Inoichi."
"The problem, Hokage-sama, is that we are human beings. Not one dimensional cardboard cutouts." Inoichi's voice was measured. "It is impossible for a person to have only three features that make him memorable. Only three aspects to his personality and character."
He shook his head slowly.
"To put this into perspective. What does Uzumaki Naruto do when he is neither pranking people, nor eating ramen, nor declaring his intention to steal your hat? Where does he go? How does he spend his time when he is not performing for an audience? What does he do at the end of a long and exhausting day, when there is no one left to perform for?"
The answers to all three questions were equally unknown.
The weight of that settled over Hiruzen slowly, the way a verdict does. He had watched over this boy. Had told himself that watching was enough. Had convinced himself that proximity was the same as presence.
It wasn't.
"There is a concept that we use in psychological evaluation. We call it the social self. It is the version of a person that exists in relation to others. The face that forms in response to how the world treats you, what it rewards, punishes, and refuses to acknowledge entirely."
He paused.
"When a child learns that who they are is not wanted, they do one of two things. They collapse inward and disappear entirely. Or they build a version of themselves that is loud enough to be noticed, simple enough to be understood, and harmless enough to be tolerated." Inoichi's voice didn't rise, but something in it sharpened. "Naruto chose the second. He found the things that got a reaction, and he repeated them. Because any response, even a negative one, was proof that he existed."
Hiruzen said nothing.
"The boy we knew was not wearing a mask. That implies awareness, calculation, and sustained effort over time. No child maintains that for twelve years without cracks slipping through."
Inoichi's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes did.
"And that is where it becomes complicated. Because that kind of construction works both ways. It keeps the world out. But it also keeps the person in. Over time, even they begin to lose track of where the performance ends and the self begins. The loud boy stops being something Naruto chose to be. He becomes the only Naruto that Naruto himself knows how to access."
He let that settle for a moment before continuing.
"This is why what you saw tonight concerns me far more than any jutsu." Inoichi's gaze was steady. "Whatever Naruto experienced out there, it reached past years of layered reflex and pulled someone else to the surface." He paused. "In psychology, we call this a dissociative break. When the constructed self can no longer contain what is underneath it, the pressure finds another way out."
Hiruzen's jaw tightened.
"We have no idea what Uzumaki Naruto has been through. We have no idea who or what shaped that part of him." Inoichi's voice was quiet, but the weight behind it was not. "And that, Hokage-sama, is the real problem. Not the jutsu, the weapons, or the killer intent. The problem is that somewhere, in the life of a child this village was supposed to protect, someone reached him before we did. And whoever it was, it left marks we are only now beginning to see."
The office was very quiet.
His age was rapidly catching up to him. He knew and believed that he had tried to do his best for not only the village, but also for the son of his successor.
Everyone Minato knew that was capable of taking care of Naruto was not available. Kakashi Hatake was a mess, psychologically speaking. After the loss of his teammates, he retreated into ANBU and took only the toughest of missions of the S rank caliber, and it was clear that he possessed some sort of death wish.
He clearly could not leave the upbringing of a child to him.
Jiraiya was far too busy maintaining Konoha's spy networks, or at least, as his job did include him travelling from place to place drinking in bars and taverns and peeping on women in hot springs. Of course, even if he was not basically a wanderer, the Third could not in good conscience leave Jiraiya all alone to raise a child.
Tsunade would have been perfect, but she was now an alcoholic gambling addict lost to her own grief, and he would not want her raising an impressionable young child either.
Mikoto Uchiha had once offered, but the clan politics were against such a thing. As the Uchiha clan had just been suspected of the ones masterminding the Kyuubi's attack in the first place, it would be tremendously bad if one of their own had then decided to adopt the boy.
The Hyuga were out of the question, and part of his village they might be, but Hiruzen had never appreciated or favored a clan that could and would so callously brand their own family members as slaves in the name of preserving and protecting a bloodline. Such a place was not where he wanted Naruto to grow up, believing that such practices were the norm.
The Aburame once again offered, but it was likewise impossible as at the time, the Kyuubi's chakra and presence made their Kikaichu bugs scared and wary. And of course, there was the issue of Naruto eventually growing up to feel like an outsider, as he vastly contrasted the majority of the Aburame.
The ideal clans would have either been the Nara, the Yamanaka, the Akimichi, or the Inuzuka.
However, there was once again the question of allowing a single clan that much power. It was not viewed as a clan attempting to train and foster the son of their hero. Rather, as a clan potentially raising and shifting the loyalty of a Jinchuriki away from the village and into their own hands.
And so Naruto had grown up unloved and uncared for, and Hiruzen had told himself that watching from a distance was the same as protecting him.
It wasn't.
"Hokage-sama?"
He surfaced from his deep thoughts slowly. "Forgive me."
"What should we do?"
"Observe him for now," Inoichi said. "If we move too quickly or too obviously, we risk pushing him further away than he already is. But there is something more important than understanding his abilities right now."
"Oh?"
"We need to give him a reason to stay." Inoichi's voice was quiet but certain. "Not the Will of Fire. Not duty or obligation or the memory of his parents. Something that belongs to him and not to this village's idea of what he should be." He met Hiruzen's eyes. "Konoha failed that boy for years. If we want him to stand with us, we have to earn it. And we have to start now, before whatever is happening to him pulls him somewhere we cannot follow."
Hiruzen nodded slowly.
"And the abilities themselves? We still don't understand where they came from."
"No, we don't."
Hiruzen's mouth curved faintly, tired humor finding its way through. "It would all be considerably simpler if Naruto weren't the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki. Under normal circumstances, I'd authorize your department to conduct a memory reading on a suspect and have answers before morning."
"Yes. Unfortunately, sending a Yamanaka into the mindscape of a child housing the Nine Tailed Fox is considerably above the threshold of acceptable risk."
"Indeed. So we observe, plan, and find another way in."
"What did you have in mind, Hokage-sama?"
Naruto burst through the door of his apartment, nearly taking it off its hinges.
He didn't stop to kick off his sandals. His eyes swept the apartment in one quick scan and he was already moving, muscle memory carrying him through the chaos he knew better than anywhere else in the world.
The entryway was its usual disaster.
Boxes stacked crookedly against the wall, bottles he kept meaning to throw out, shoes kicked in every direction. He stepped over all of it without looking down and hit the storage cabinet first.
Top shelf. Left side. Behind the instant ramen he'd been saving.
His hands closed around the first pouch and he shook it, listening for the familiar rattle of shuriken before holding it out in front of him. It shimmered and vanished.
[ Shuriken Pouch x1 has been added to Inventory ]
Second pouch behind it, full set of kunai. He'd counted them yesterday out of habit.
[ Kunai Pouch x1 has been added to Inventory ]
He moved to the desk next.
It was buried, as always, under open books and empty cups and papers covered in half finished notes on his assignments from the Academy. He shoved most of it aside and yanked open the bottom drawer. Explosive tags, bundled in groups of five the way he'd seen it done in a book he'd borrowed from the Academy library and never returned. He grabbed all four bundles, held them out, watched them shimmer away one after another.
[ Explosive Tags x25 has been added to Inventory ]
Smoke bombs were in the kitchen.
He ducked around the corner and pulled open the cabinet above the stove, the one that was supposed to hold cooking supplies but mostly held things he didn't know where else to put. Eight smoke bombs wrapped in a cloth he'd torn off an old shirt. He took all of them. The paint bombs were underneath, four of them, red and blue, left over from a prank he'd been planning before everything went sideways.
[ Smoke Bombs x8 has been added to Inventory ]
[ Paint Bombs x4 has been added to Inventory ]
Medicinal kit was under the bed.
He dropped to one knee and reached into the dark, fingers finding the worn strap immediately. He dragged it out and flipped it open on the mattress, checking by habit. Bandages. Antiseptic. Soldier pills, only two left. He needed to get more. Needle and thread still sealed. He snapped it shut and held it out.
[ Medical Kit x1 has been added to Inventory ]
The cloak was the last thing from inside.
It was hanging on the back of the bedroom door where he always left it, treated with a chakra reactive dye that responded to the transformation jutsu and helped the illusion hold against trained eyes.
Then he stepped out onto the balcony.
It was the one part of the apartment that wasn't a disaster.
He'd started it small, just a few pots he'd found abandoned outside the building, soil he'd carried up four flights of stairs in a bucket. But it had grown over the years into something he didn't have a word for. Rows of mismatched containers lined the railing, clay pots, old cans, and one cracked bowl he'd wired back together rather than throw away. Every one of them had something growing in it.
Yarrow first. He pulled a generous handful of the dried flower heads, the ones he'd hung upside down last month specifically for this. Good for bleeding. He'd learned that the hard way after a prank went wrong three years ago and he'd spent a night figuring out how to stop a cut on his arm from soaking through everything he pressed against it.
[ Dried Yarrow has been added to Inventory ]
Ginger root next, two thick pieces he'd been drying on the balcony ledge. Good for pain, nausea, and the kind of deep bone ache that came after the body had taken more than it was meant to.
[ Dried Ginger Root x2 has been added to Inventory ]
He went back down the row and stripped every medicinal herb bare.
Oscar was worth more than a careful harvest.
He stood at the railing for a moment, hands loose at his sides, looking out over the village. Rooftops and lamplight and the distant shape of the Hokage Monument carved into the mountainside. Four faces looking out over everything they'd built and everyone they'd left behind.
He turned away from the balcony and went back inside.
The jacket was draped over the back of his desk chair where Iruka had left it after his last birthday, still folded the way it had been when it came out of the wrapping. Navy blue, slightly too big for him, which Iruka had said was intentional because you'll grow into it. Naruto had worn it exactly twice since then.
He picked it up and held it for a moment.
Then he started lining the inside with explosive tags.
It took him four minutes and every tag he had left.
The plan had come to him while he was stripping the balcony, the way his best ideas usually did, arriving fully formed and slightly unhinged. He would wear this suicide jacket and make shadow clones. Each one wearing exactly what he wore, jacket included, identical down to the last detail the way only shadow clones could manage. And then he would send them running straight at the demon.
In the half second before the demon figured out what it was holding.
Boom.
Kamikaze Shadow Clone Jutsu. Naruto pressed his lips together very hard and failed to stop the grin.
It was certainly a plan.
[ Explosive Tag Jacket x1 has been added to Inventory ]
Sorry, Iruka sensei. You'll have to get me a new one for my birthday.
Naruto smiled at the thought and grabbed the cup noodles.
You are going to enjoy these, sensei.
He stood in the middle of the apartment and realized, for the first time since he'd burst through the door, that he had absolutely no idea how to get back to the asylum.
He looked at the ceiling.
Then, because nothing else came to mind, so he raised his fist into the air and announced to the world, "Send me back to the Northern Undead Asylum."
Silence.
Somewhere outside, a crow cawed in the distance.
"Shut up," Naruto told it.
He turned back to the room, cup noodle still in hand, heat crawling up his neck so fast he was surprised smoke wasn't coming off his ears. His hand tightened around the cup out of pure frustration and it shimmered away before he'd even decided to store it.
Oscar's words came to his head.
The Darksign does not simply mark you. It defines what you are in this world. Death triggers it. It returns you to the last bonfire you rested at.
Do I need the Darksign to go back?
As if on cue, a system window blinked open in front of him.
[ Item: Darksign ]
[ Description: The Darksign signifies an accursed Undead. Those branded with it are reborn after death, but will one day lose their mind and go Hollow. Death triggers the Darksign, which returns its bearer to the last bonfire rested at, but at the cost of all humanity and souls. ]
Do I have to die to use this?
The thought sat in his chest with a particular kind of weight. He could do it again if he had to. But before he'd finished the thought, a second window opened beneath the first.
[ Do you wish to use item: Darksign? ]
[ Yes / No ]
Naruto let out a breath that was almost a laugh and pressed Yes.
The back of his neck erupted.
The burn drove him to one knee before he could brace for it, a searing heat that moved outward from his spine in waves, each one worse than the last. He grabbed the edge of the desk with one hand and held on as the sigils spread across the floor beneath him, yellow light carving itself into two concentric circles, symbols forming in the space between them.
The light built until he couldn't see the room anymore.
Until he couldn't see anything.
But even through the pain, through the white consuming everything, one thought cut clean and clear.
Don't worry, sensei. He felt himself coming apart at the edges, the apartment dissolving, Konoha dissolving, and everything falling away into the light. Your squire is coming. We're going to kick that demon's ass. And then we're eating ramen, dattebayo.
The light took him.
Naruto's messy apartment settled into silence after he vanished, the faint shimmer of the Darksign fading from the floorboards like the last ember of a dying fire.
It didn't stay silent for long.
A figure shimmered into existence on the ceiling. ANBU Owl had been assigned to Uzumaki Naruto by the Hokage himself less than an hour ago, with a single directive that had seemed straightforward at the time.
Observe. Report. Do not interfere unless the subject's life is in immediate danger.
He had expected a troubled twelve year old to go home, eat something, and cry.
Instead he had watched the subject systematically strip his apartment of every weapon, explosive, and medicinal supply he owned, store all of it using an unknown space time technique, tend to a balcony garden with the focused efficiency of a field medic preparing for a siege, line a jacket with explosive tags, and then stand in the middle of the room and attempt to verbally summon a teleportation.
Owl had been ANBU for six years.
He had seen things that had permanently rearranged his understanding of what was possible.
He updated his report without moving a muscle.
Subject has demonstrated using an unclassified long range space time technique. Technique bears surface resemblance to reverse summoning jutsu but does not match any documented variant in Konoha's classification system. Subject shows no signs of surprise or difficulty during activation, suggesting prior familiarity with the technique.
Unknown summoning clan affiliation cannot be ruled out.
Subject's current location: unknown.
Subject's destination: unknown.
Owl looked at the floorboards and the concentric circles burned into the wood. At the symbols carved between them in a fuinjutsu language he did not recognize and had never seen in any scroll, any briefing, or any classified file he had ever been cleared to read.
This is going to be a very complicated report.
While Owl was in thought, something snaked toward him from the shadows below. He jumped backward and drew his tantō in one motion, slashing through it. The tendril split apart and dissolved into a liquid, leaving only a faint smear of ink on the blade.
What shinobi uses ink for their ninjutsu?
The answer came from the dark in the form of a body moving very fast. The figure that rushed him was young, barely older than Naruto himself if the build was anything to go by. A plain white mask covered his face entirely.
Their blades met with a sharp ring of steel.
Owl held the bind for half a second, reading and assessing the enemy. Whoever this was, they had learned to fight on the field.
He threw a smoke bomb and broke for the window.
Suddenly a foot connected with his chest from outside and drove him back into the room hard enough to rattle the shelving.
Sealing Jutsu: Crouched Tiger Bullet!
Owl turned in time to see an ink illustration of a tiger on the scroll. As the hand signs completed, the drawing peeled itself free of the paper and lunged.
The Anbu went for the swing.
When a kunai took him clean in the hand. And the tantō was on the floor before he had consciously registered getting bit by a three dimensional drawing. The tiger dragged him backward into the scroll, the sealing jutsu folding around him, pinning him flat within the confines of the illustration.
He wasn't going anywhere.
"Excellent work as always."
The voice came from the window.
The young man who dropped into the apartment had auburn hair and amber eyes. A short black jacket with red shoulder straps that Owl recognized immediately and with a particular sinking feeling.
Root.
"Thank you, Fu senpai," the one with the faceless mask said while removing his mask.
A thirteen year old kid with short black hair and dark eyes. Skin pale enough to look like it hadn't quite decided to commit to being a color.
"Agent Sai. Create a report for Lord Danzō regarding the Kyuubi Jinchūriki. Be thorough." Fu crouched beside the pinned ANBU. "While I make this ANBU into my puppet."
Owl wanted to activate his suicide seal.
He couldn't move his chakra.
The sealing jutsu pressed down on his chakra points. That included the specific two points he needed to activate the seal that would have ended this cleanly. He strained against it. And got nothing back.
Fu's fingers pressed to his temple.
Owl understood then, exactly what was about to happen. False reports would reach the Hokage. Konoha's picture of tonight would be built on whatever Fu decided to put in it. And the Hokage would move on that picture, make decisions on it, trust it.
He couldn't stop any of it.
He could only hope Konoha was ready for the storm that was approaching.
Far away from Konoha, hidden deep within a rugged mountain range, lay a small, secluded temple. From the outside it looked like any ordinary place of worship. Ancient stone pillars standing stoic against the weathered landscape. Moss creeping up the walls in patient increments.
The Fire Zen Temple.
A remote location where banished shinobi who were too dangerous to be left free, yet too valuable to be discarded, were sent to live out their days in carefully managed obscurity.
In a small garden to the east of the main building, a man knelt in the dirt.
He was old and frail in the way a blade left to rust still cuts. Shaggy black hair hung limply around a face marked by an X shaped scar on the chin. He wore a simple white shirt beneath a dark robe that covered him from his feet to just over his right shoulder. And he was pressing pumpkin seeds into the earth with his bare hands, one by one.
Behind him stood two shinobi guards.
The picture they composed was almost convincing.
To the outside world, Shimura Danzō had been broken. Stripped of his influence, exiled to this remote temple, and watched around the clock by loyal Konoha operatives. The War Hawk of Konoha, the boogeyman of the shinobi world, reduced to gardening in isolation while the village he had shaped from the shadows moved on without him.
That was the story Konoha told itself.
The truth was considerably more inconvenient.
Danzō had taken control of Fire Zen Temple within six months of his arrival. The guards behind him were not Konoha's men. The reports filed about his behavior were not accurate. The isolation was a costume he wore with the same ease he wore everything else, as a tool, as a performance, and as a means to an end that nobody outside these walls was yet equipped to see.
A Root ANBU appeared at the garden's edge without sound.
"Speak."
"Danzō sama. A report from our agents in Konoha."
Danzō continued pressing seeds into the earth with the other hand while his eye moved across the page. He had long ago trained himself to read without expression, to let information arrive and settle before allowing it to mean anything.
He reached a specific section and stopped.
Confirmed space time ninjutsu.
Unknown summoning clan.
Subject departed to unconfirmed location via unknown technique.
Hokage has authorized ANBU observation. Intelligence remains incomplete.
He read those last four words again.
Intelligence remains incomplete.
Danzō set the report down in his lap and looked at the garden. The pumpkin seeds he had planted would take weeks to show anything. You pressed them into the earth then you waited. The waiting was where most of the work actually happened, underneath the surface.
"Your command, Danzō sama?"
"Activate all sleeper agents currently embedded within Konoha. Their objective is to keep Konoha from truly understanding Uzumaki Naruto." Danzō pressed the last seed into the earth and smoothed the soil over it with two fingers. "I do not need Konoha blind. I need Konoha working with half a picture."
The Root ANBU bowed without a word.
A shinobi operating on incomplete information does not sit still. Danzō knew this the way he knew everything about Hiruzen Sarutobi, from decades of watching the man govern from a place of love rather than logic. Love made a man predictable. Love made a man fill silences with his worst fears rather than his best intelligence. And fear, applied correctly, was the most reliable weapon in any arsenal.
Hiruzen feared what he couldn't understand.
He feared losing what he loved.
And he feared, above all else, making the same mistake twice.
Let him be afraid of what the boy is becoming, Danzō thought quietly. Let him pour everything he has into understanding abilities he has no framework for. Let him scramble.
His eye moved to the tree line. To the distance where Konoha sat warm and unsuspecting in the dark.
"Search all you like, Sarutobi."
His hand rested briefly on the doorframe, the temple swallowing his shadow as he stepped inside. "By the time you understand what that boy is, he will already be mine. And through him, everything he has become will serve this village."
Danzō let the door close behind him.
"As it always should have."
Author's Note
Well, well, well, we've now completed the Naruto side of the fanfic, and quite a lot has happened. Many players are moving and developing their own schemes for our Dark Souls Naruto, yes, that's what I'll be calling him from here on out.
I also wanted to let you know that I've created a patron with an E where I've already uploaded over 200k plus words of content related to Naruto: The Chosen Undead and more. If you're interested in supporting me, you can do so for as little as a dollar. But no worries if that's not possible. Just reading my fanfic means a lot to me.
Every dollar goes toward keeping me alive on caffeine and instant noodles.
Important reminder. Anyone who hides their fanfic behind a paywall is the literary equivalent of a wet sock. That will never be me.
Everything I write stays free. Always.
If you want to tip me, great. If not, great. Reading my stuff is already enough to keep my overinflated writer ego happy.
Now, I'd like to clarify a few things that I think need explaining.
Q: What is Killer Intent?
In canon Naruto, killing intent is a very vague thing.
We see it used two times in the entire story as far as I know:
When Zabuza first appeared against Team 7. Team 7 was frozen in fear.
When Sasuke and Sakura encountered Orochimaru and thought they were killed.
According to the Naruto Wiki, killing intent is simply the user exuding pure killing intention and having it affect their opponent, themselves, and others around them, up to the point of paralyzing them with fear. When the killing intent is particularly strong, it can even give the victim visions of their own gruesome death. This can cause killing intent to be confused with a genjutsu, despite it not being a jutsu at all.
So using this opportunity, I want to explore killing intent further than canon.
Here is my interpretation of killing intent for this fanfic. When you kill someone, a trace of their chakra lingers, and since it's a result of death, this lingering chakra is Yin chakra. Yin chakra is typically used for genjutsu, so when a ninja flares their chakra while having murderous intent, the residual Yin can create an illusion of death, otherwise known as bloodlust or killer intent.
Now that is cleared up, why does Naruto have this ability?
DS1 Naruto can absorb souls, which means his chakra contains a higher Yin component, even though he hasn't killed many yet. This high Yin chakra causes his bloodlust to cast the illusion of Hollows clawing at you.
This topic will be explored later on, as I plan to introduce levels to this, because Zabuza's and Orochimaru's killing intent were very different.
Q: Why is Ino's mother dead? Isn't she alive in canon?
Well, in canon she's barely a character. Making her dead in this story adds more weight to Inoichi's character. He's a single dad dealing with the grief of losing his wife, running T and I, and raising his daughter, who he still has a strong bond with. Without even much explanation, it gives him a lot more depth than canon ever did.
Wouldn't you agree?
Q: How do Naruto's stats work?
A question I got last chapter and one worth addressing properly.
Think of Naruto's stats as his baseline. Strip away every drop of chakra he has, with no Kyuubi influence. What remains is the person underneath.
That is what his stats represent.
This is why his numbers aren't extraordinary at first glance. Some of you wanted to see a Vitality of 30 or higher, which makes sense on paper. He's an Uzumaki. They're legendary for their life force and endurance. But those numbers reflect Naruto without chakra, and an Uzumaki without chakra wouldn't have huge vitality or endurance.
Don't worry though. I have something specific planned for the Uzumaki clan that will affect his stats down the line. That's all I'll say about that for now.
As for augmentation, yes, Naruto can absolutely enhance his stats through chakra. A Strength stat of 12 already lets him hit hard enough to fracture bone. Layer chakra reinforcement over that and the math changes considerably. The same logic applies to Endurance, Dexterity, Resistance, and similar physical stats.
However, not everything can be pushed higher with chakra. Intelligence and Faith are internal.
The short version. Stats are the foundation. Chakra and jutsu are what you build on top of it.